German War & Politics TV Shows

It's about human history, how humans shaped the world we live in. A history through cultures and civilizations - from early Mesopotamia to the industrial revolution. Documentary series from various european production company’s like BBC, SVT, NRK, DR, ARTE, Covering serveral topics of war, Persons Like Cleopatra, Hitler, George Washington, etc

An inexperienced U-boat crew has to survive a secret mission and a young German woman is torn between loyalty for her home country and the French resistance in the WWII drama.

Career-soldier Wilhelm, his pacifist younger brother Friedhelm, and their friends Charlotte, Viktor and Greta say farewell in the summer of 1941 in Berlin, with the promise to meet again after the war.

An investigation into the nature, details and reasons for the collaboration, from 1940 to 1944, during World War II, between the Vichy regime, established in the south of France and headed by Marshal Pétain, and Nazi Germany.

Based on an autobiographical novel by German World War II photographer Lothar-Guenther Buchheim, Das Boot follows the lives of a fearless U-Boat captain (Jurgen Prochnow) and his inexperienced crew as they patrol the Atlantic and Mediterranean in search of Allied vessels, taking turns as hunter and prey.

Realtimehistory creates chronological documentaries such Rhineland 45 and 15 Days in Berlin. They are also know as the team behind the youtube hit series The great War. Now they will cover one of the pivotal wars of the 19th century in real time: the Franco-Prussian War.

Summer 1944. Walter Proska is about to return to the Eastern Front when his train is blown up by partisans. Together with a scattered bunch of German soldiers, cut off from the front, he awaits certain death while the commands of his superior Willi Stehauf are becoming more and more senseless and inhuman.

Berlin 1933 – Diary Of A Metropolis tells the story of how Berlin, the vibrant hub of modernity, became Germany's staunch capital city in step with the Third Reich. Contemporary journals, letters and documents, photographs and film material, form a dense collage of the dynamics of this collectively organised disaster.

Two Americans and their allies form a scrappy rescue operation in 1940 Marseilles to help artists, writers and other refugees fleeing Europe during WWII. Transatlantic is a historical drama television miniseries created by Anna Winger and Daniel Hendler, based on the 2019 novel The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer. The novel explores the historic Emergency Rescue Committee that operated in Marseilles, Spain, and Portugal in 1940 after the fall of France. The series includes or refers to well-known artists or scholars of the time who were saved by the Committee or interacted with it. The series closed the 2023 Series Mania festival in March, ahead of its Netflix premiere on 7 April 2023.

After a defector is murdered, British agent Fielding Scott is assigned to track down a mole in his own ranks in 1961 Berlin. His investigation leads him into a deadly web of crime, betrayal and paranoia. Who can Scott trust in the city of spies?

On July 4th, 2026, the United States will celebrate Independence Day, just as it does every year. But 250 years on from the country’s Declaration of Independence, the image of the United States has become tarnished. Yet today, the United States seems increasingly alien and ever more threatening to many Europeans. Is Donald Trump’s current policy the product of a national identity shaped by history? To understand the American mindset, one must look back to the roots and myths that have shaped it — a history marked by rifts and conflicts that continue to resonate today. By drawing parallels between cowboys and populism, Thanksgiving and Charlie Kirk, this 2-part documentary demonstrates that Trump’s politics differ from those of his predecessors and are not in line with the values upon which the history of the American nation was founded.

"Löwengrube – Die Grandauers und ihre Zeit" is a German television series first aired between 1989 and 1992, created by Willy Purucker and directed by Rainer Wolffhardt. It is set in Munich and follows the lives of Ludwig Grandauer and his son Karl, both policemen, covering the years from 1897 to 1954. The TV show is based on Purucker's radio play series Die Grandauers und ihre Zeit (‘The Grandauers and their time’). The series’ main title "Löwengrube", meaning ‘Lions’ Den’, refers to the address of the Munich Police Headquarters inaugurated in 1913.

World War II is about to end. Benito Mussolini, il Duce, supreme dictator of Fascist Italy, sees his totalitarian dream crumbling and his power slipping away as the terrible day of his ignominious death at the hands of those he so ruthlessly oppressed for more than two decades draws inexorably near.

Seventy years after the liberation of Auschwitz, we have not finished accounting for the destruction of Europe's Jewish population. One question remains today: not why, but how was the Shoah possible?

Known as The Last Knight for his bravery and battle skills, the great European emperor Maximilian and his story is as spectacular as it is familiar: It is the story of a prince who must learn to be king. But above all, it is the struggle of a son who steps out of his father's shadow with the help of a most unexpected ally: Marie de Bourgogne.

Cold War, the seventies. Lars is a Romeo agent from East Germany: he must go to the West side and seduce and spy on Western women who work in government or defense institutions.

The person Adolf Hitler shaped the 20th century like no other. This series documents the Hitler's life using unpublished material.

When war broke out in Europe in 1914, most people thought the conflict would be over by Christmas; they could not imagine how wrong they were. An attack in Sarajevo ended up becoming a snowball that swept the world: a new kind of warfare had begun, waged with techniques and means never seen before. By November 1918, ten million people had died and the political map of the planet had been redrawn.

From the armistice of 1918, which marked the end of the First World War, to the declaration of war in September 1939, the beginning of the Second World War: an era during which there was an aspiration to create a new world, prosperous and at peace, but which provoked a new tragedy, seen through the destinies of thirteen people who were both actors and witnesses of the upheavals of the so-called inter-war period.

Bonn depicts the rise of the young West Germany, a country struggling to break free from the terrors and legacies of World War II and longing for a 'normal' life. Into this heady and volatile mix steps Toni, a young woman determined to seize every opportunity, overcome every obstacle and make her own way in what is still a very male-dominated society. But what at first appears to be only an entry-level office job at one of the country's two competing secret services soon sucks her ever deeper into a clandestine world of secrets and suspicion. Based on true events.

The discovery of oil brought unprecedented economic growth to humanity. Initially, oil was available in large quantities and cheap – but in 1973, a consequential oil price crisis hit, and the sticky commodity became part of a geopolitical poker game. The struggle for global resources is more relevant than ever.

Prague 1942. The city is occupied by German troops. As the end of the war and the advancing Russian army comes ever nearer, the Czech chief inspector Beran and his assistant Jan Morava are hunting a serial killer. During his investigation, every step Morava takes is observed by Gestapo man Erwin Buback. Buback’s brief is to report to his Nazi superior Meckerle how closely the Prague police is linked to the Czech resistance movement. Then the Soviet troops reach Prague and in the armed rising against the occupiers even the most innocent become murderers.

A reassessment of the role Albert Speer played in the Third Reich. Speer, who was ultimately convicted at the Nuremburg trials and served a 20-year prison sentence, was known for designing many of the Third Reich's buildings and for being Hitler's minister for war production.

When World War II breaks out in 1939, several people from different countries and social backgrounds must decide which cause they want to defend.

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The story of an empire: From its founding in 1922 to its dissolution in 1991, the Soviet Union was shaped by revolutionary idealism, but also by oppression and decay. The USSR evolved from Stalinist terror through the Thaw under Khrushchev to political processes such as glasnost and perestroika under Gorbachev. Finally, in 1991, it collapsed.

This three-part investigative documentary follows former members of Russian intelligence who reveal how the Kremlin’s spy networks operate. Through insider testimony and expert analysis, it examines recruitment methods, covert missions, cyber operations, and the mechanisms used to silence opposition and project influence abroad under Vladimir Putin’s rule.

"Operation Valkyrie" was the name of an official alarm plan during the Second World War. With the help of this plan, the conspirators around Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg wanted to bring about the overthrow of Germany on July 20, 1944. The events are well known: Stauffenberg's assassination attempt failed, Adolf Hitler remained alive. In addition to the purely scenic reconstruction, this two-part, documentary-style film consists of interspersed interviews and reports with eyewitnesses and survivors who were directly involved. Everything that is available in the way of authentic testimony about July 20, 1944 is examined and documented with the highest degree of realism.

This outstanding and sensitive drama series tells a young and family audience the stories of children who lived through a most difficult era in recent history - and who grew with its challenges.

Helpless, the young convent student Richard has to watch as his mother Sarazenin Zobeida is condemned by the inquisitor Heinrich Institoris as a witch and burned at the stake. From then on, Richard swears revenge on Institoris for what he did to his family. He can escape and is taken by the merchant Jakob Fugger. He wants to teach him not only to seek blind revenge, but to manipulate people like puppets and thus to reach his goals. The two travel from Florence to Rome to influence the upcoming election of the pope and to witness the power struggle between the Medicis and the Borgias up close.

No overview available

A story about German resistance group fighting SS units during WWII.

Bundestag member Eva Blumenthal is forced to resign due to political intrigue. Because of this, he changes jobs; she is hired by a lobbying agency. The more he proves his innocence, the more he deviates from his own morals. It must prove that there is an even more complex network of manipulation and corruption behind the intrigues. Her former lover, Economy Minister Bertram Kaiser, is found dead in the Spree River. It is unclear whether he was killed or committed suicide. is his death connected to a conspiracy?

Explores the Third Reich from a contemporary perspective to investigate how the Nazis managed to conquer Germany and then half of Europe in the wake of World War I.

A look back at the social movements, revolts and youth subcultures from the post-war period to the present day: after the World War II, the left-bank of Paris became a mecca for jazz and alternative living, youth culture was born with trailblazing American movies, and rock became the soundtrack to a generation that wanted to change everything.

The People’s Republic of China now plays a central role in global politics, economics and diplomacy – more than it ever has before. Its president, Xi Jinping openly espouses the model forged by former Chairman, Mao Zedong, known as the Great Helmsman. But what do we really know about Mao? And how does his legacy relate to Xi’s ‘China Dream’? This 3-part documentary series explores Mao Zedong, his beliefs and his methods. It shows how these have shaped Xi’s philosophy and the reality of today’s China. Mao had set China on the road to true sovereignty, freeing it from the humiliation of foreign domination. Xi is now completing that journey towards the strong Middle Kingdom and cultural predominance that Mao aimed for – while sweeping under the carpet the unthinkable victims and costs of Mao’s rule. The story arc of Mao’s astonishing biography provides varied and profound insights into the ideals, strategies and ambitions of today’s People’s Republic and its position in the next decade.

A prisoner of war is sentenced to 25 years in the Soviet Union. His escape from the Soviet gulag takes him through the intense and hopeless terrain of Siberia.

End of Innocence is a two-part television film that focuses on the work of the German Uranium Association during World War II. At Farm Hall in England, the ten German nuclear scientists interned there as part of Operation Epsilon learn of the dropping of the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945. In flashbacks, the development of the German uranium project is recapitulated chronologically from the discovery of nuclear fission by Otto Hahn to the work of Kurt Diebner at the Heereswaffenamt to the experiments of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics under Werner Heisenberg and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker at the Haigerloch research reactor in spring 1945.

ZERV" tells of the first years after the fall of the Wall, the breaks in life courses, of completely different biographies and of the successful coming together in the common fight against crime, which knows no East and West. ZERV stands for the Central Investigation Office for Government and Association Crime, founded in Berlin in 1991 by decision of the federal government.

The series describes the time of the First World War in 8 episodes based on the novel by Bernard von Brentano from the perspective of the family of a Hessian Reichstag member, an independent man of the Catholic-conservative Centre Party.